Ozzy Osbourne – Ordinary Man

3/10

Good songs are hard to find. Just ask Ozzy about it. I don’t care that Duff McKagan, Chad Smith, Tom Morello and Slash have composed some of the tracks on this album. It is just a long line of uninspired standard rock songs, sung by a seventy-year old sober Ozzy in pretty bad shape. It is exactly as boring as you would imagine from this description. Even the sound is boring. The snare drum is just dead, the guitar is totally without edge and all together it is just…nothing.

The only track that has some kind of energy is also said to be the one that got Ozzy all fired up and wanted to do this album. I am talking about “Take What You Want” by the hip-hop artist Post Malone, which is featuring Ozzy Osborne and Travis Scott. But as you can see (and probably heard), that is not an Ozzy track.

If anything, “Ordinary Man” actually states the genius of Bob Daisley, the main composer on the first three Ozzy albums. His absence has never been more painfully obvious. But at least it got an appropriate title. It is indeed a very ordinary album. A sad ending of an extraordinary career for the Prince of Darkness. Just as the last drink, the last run…et cetera. This (probably) last album would have been better left undone.

Band: Ozzy Osbourne
Title: Ordinary Man
Label: Epic Records / Sony Music
Date of release: 21/2 2020
Rate: 3/10
Stand out tracks: Straight to Hell, Take What You Want